Psalm 80 – Psalms In The Summer

Today's reading is from Psalm eighty.

And the question is: who is the vine in this Psalm?

Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who led Joseph like a flock.

You who are enthroned upon the cherubim shine forth.

Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up your might and come to save us.

Restore us, O God, let your faith shine that we may be saved.

O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people's prayers?

You have fed them with the bread of tears and given them tears to drink in full measure.

You make us an object of contention for our neighbors, and our enemies laugh among themselves.

Restore us, O God of hosts.

Let your faith shine that we may be saved.

You brought a vine out of Egypt.

You drove out the nations and planted it.

You cleared the ground for it.

It took deep root and filled the land.

The mountains were covered with its grade, the mighty cedars with its branches.

It sent out its branches to the sea and its roots to the river.

Why then have you broken down its walls, so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit?

The boar from the forest ravages it, and all that move in the field feed on it.

Turn again, O God of hosts.

Look down from heaven and see, have regard for this rip vine, the stock that your right hand planted, and for the son whom you made strong for yourself.

They have burned it with fire, they have cut it down.

May they perish at the rebuke of your face.

But let your hand be on the man of your right hand, the son of the man, uh son of man whom you have made strong for yourself.

Then we shall not turn back from you.

Give us life, and we will call upon your name.

Restore us, O Lord, God of hosts, let your face shine that we may be saved.

So reads God's word.

Again, you're very, very welcome.

I'm Peter.

Uh I'm the assistant pastor here.

And uh if as I'm getting started, getting set up here, if you turn uh turn Psalm 80, turn Psalm 80 in your Bibles, whether you have uh a paper Bible or on your phones, it'd be good to have in front of you.

There's a couple of reasons for that.

Uh it's important that you see, I'm not making stuff up.

I know Abby read it earlier and we had it on the screen, um, but it's good to have in front of you as we're looking through it.

Another reason is uh which I only realize is something we don't quite get on the screen sometimes, especially with the Psalms, is that um there's there's songs and they're poems, and so how they're even how they're laid out and the stanzas is important and helps us to helps to communicate the meaning.

I was at the beach uh as a child with my family, and it was a lovely, lovely day.

It was a really sunny day, and so the beach was packed.

And so I was a I was just a kid, and my brother, who's three years older than me, um, was also I I think he might have been a teenager, and I was I was maybe I was maybe 10 or 11.

And we went into the water, we were splashing about in the waves and playing together.

I don't know, I don't think we had a ball or anything, but maybe we did.

Um, and we were playing around and we were having great fun, not paying attention to anything but what was going on.

But a while later we looked, we looked to the beach and we realized, where's dad?

Where's mum?

Where where's our beach tells?

Where's all the stuff?

What had happened while we were just we were just playing around, splashing in the waves, without us realizing, and there was no landmarks, we couldn't see this beach didn't have any any buildings on the on there was no buildings on the beach that we could be like, oh that's where we were, whatever.

So we ended up drifting down as we were playing over the course of, I don't know, was it 15 or 20 minutes?

We drifted maybe like 100, 150 meters, maybe 200, I can't remember exactly.

Obviously, you can sense the how frightening that was.

And if uh there's some young people here who might be thinking about uh their next holiday and being in the sea, there's a good lesson for you.

And parents, I have another good lesson for you because what happened was uh in the meantime, our dad was keeping an eye on us, and he followed us, he followed us down the beach.

He was still on the beach, he didn't call out to us or anything.

I think he probably knew he was teaching us, we were being taught a lesson, he was allowing that lesson to happen.

Um and he noted us, he noticed that we were drifting down, and he followed us down the beach until we started looking for him, and then he came, he made himself known, and we were fine.

It was a bit scary, but what we needed to do when we were in the water, when we were playing around, not paying attention to anything, was we needed to constantly be turning and checking to look, to see our parents, to see where they were and where we were meant to be.

But instead, we went way where we got lost.

And we weren't able to find our own way back.

But for us as God's children, what do we do when we go astray?

Where do we turn?

How often do we turn?

How do we turn?

Now, for us as kids, it's not like we were we weren't running away.

We weren't trying to get away, we weren't trying to do our own thing necessarily.

It just happened.

It was an accident, I guess.

Sometimes, as God's children, though, there's sin involved and we end up going away because of decisions we've made.

This Psalm helps us to engage with the pain of going so far off track that you don't even know if God hears.

It's another Psalm of Asaph.

If you see that in the in the title, it says to the choir master, according to Lily's, a testimony of Asaph, a Psalm.

We've been in a few Psalms of ASAF since we started uh into our psalms again this summer, about a month, just over a month ago.

So this is another Psalm of Asaph, a psalm that's set to music for a congregation to sing.

So as we're looking through the Psalm, we're thinking of this being a corporate thing.

It's for God's people to sing together.

And it's a psalm of lament.

It's a psalm of lament because they're singing to God about the pain and trouble that they're facing.

It comes off the back of Psalm 79, which we looked at last week, where uh the ending fits perfectly with the start of uh Psalm 80 here.

Last week ended with the hope and comfort of being a sheep in God's pasture.

And this week starts with coming before God as the shepherd of his people.

There's more similarities with some of even Psalm 78 and Psalm 77 before, too.

But what this Psalm is all about is what runs through it from start to finish.

You see that repeated refrain in verse 3, verse 7, verse 19, and it starts off in verse 3 is restore us, O God, let your face shine that we may be saved.

This is what Asaph, the writer of the Psalm, is helping the people of God to say together, and he wants them to do it often.

He really wants them to remember.

He repeats it a number of times through this Psalm.

We'll look more at what he means by restoration and why it's necessary, but as we look at this first section, so verses 1 to 3, we see that we need to cry out for restoration from the mighty shepherd king.

That's our first point.

Cry out for restoration from the mighty shepherd king.

In verse 3, we're to cry out for restoration from God, but who is that God?

So that's what we're going to look at.

In verses 1 and 2, he's our mighty shepherd king.

So the opening words of the Psalm, give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock.

They paint a picture of a God who cares for his people.

It's who he is, it's his character.

And the psalmist asks him to listen and hear.

That's a good thing.

It's only right that someone someone who's being cared for to look to their care and ask to be listened to.

But it's the first inkling of what's to come in this psalm.

Asaf seems unsure that God is listening.

And so he appeals to who God is as a caring shepherd who leads us, who leads and he guides his flock.

He appeals to that God to give ear, to listen to his plea, to listen to the people's plea.

Like God's people at this time.

You may know that God hears you and cares, but even so it can feel like in his anger that he doesn't.

So don't be afraid to ask him to listen.

Don't be afraid to remind him that he is the good shepherd who cares deeply about his people.

He's inviting us to do that in this Psalm.

We cry out for restoration because he cares for his people.

And the rest of verse 1 continues on to place God on his throne as the glorious king that he is.

We cry out for restoration from the God who is glorious King.

He's enthroned upon the cherubim.

They're these angelic beings.

He's above all things as the most beautiful, the most glorious, the most majestic, the most wonderful, the most amazing.

And Asaph wants God to show his glory from there.

He says, shine forth.

And you'll see that this is crucial for us to be restored and saved, just a few lines down in verse 3, which we'll come to.

God shining forth, shining his face, is crucial for us to be restored.

But for now, we're going to take more notes from Asaph about how to pray.

He's teaching us to pray.

Pray, as Asaph does, that God's glory would shine forth from where he's enthroned.

Pray that all would see him in his majesty, enthroned above.

Pray that you would see more of his glory in your life.

Pray that you would see more of his glory in the lives of those around you and in his people.

Pray that we would see it more and more in our church as we look to him.

So cry out to the glorious King for restoration.

ASAP then cries out in verse 2 for God to stir up his might and save us.

He cries out for restoration from the God who is mighty to save.

God's people are in trouble, as it's clear later on, but it's probably, it's not quite clear exactly when this what's happening, but it's probably that the north, the northern kingdom, which includes uh these two names, two of the names here in verse 2, Ephraim and Manasseh, they were in trouble and being attacked.

So Asaph got asks God to stir up his might before those who are in trouble and to save them.

But he includes Benjamin here.

And Benjamin belongs to the southern kingdom, which didn't fall until afterwards.

Though the kingdom was divided in two, Asaph is praying that God would save all his people, even those who are divided.

And this is part of being restored.

To be saved, yes, but for God to save all his people, even when we're divided.

And you can sense the confidence that Asaph has in the character and the strength of God.

He's sure that God is mighty to save, and so he calls out for restoration and salvation from him.

And then we get on get on into verse 3 and we see this first refrain.

As we continue to be led by Asaph, we continue to be led that God's people are to be confident that God will restore us and save us.

And he says, Restore us, O God.

Let your face shine that we may be saved.

Beholding God's glory and seeing his face, that brings salvation.

Being restored means being brought back to God to see God face to face again.

You see, the word restore here means to turn back.

It's the same root word in Hebrew as in verse 14.

If you glance down to verse 14 and see that it says, turn again, O God of hosts.

So the word restore in verse 3, verse 7, verse 19 has a similar, has the same root word as the turn again in verse 14.

So we'll get on to verse 14 later, but back up in verse uh 3.

So in asking God to restore us, what we're asking him to do is to turn us back to him.

And we need turning back often, don't we?

We turn away to other things so often, and we need him to turn us that we might see his face again, that we might know his blessing and be saved.

You see, when when God blessed his people through Aaron the priest in number six, he said, The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.

The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

To have God's face shine upon you is to be blessed.

It's to have him be gracious to you and to know peace.

And again, don't we need him to turn us back so that we know his blessing and his salvation?

Don't we need him to restore us?

We need him to restore us to what once was.

We need him to restore us to relationship with him, where he indeed is our shepherd who leads and guides.

We need him to turn us back, like sheep who wander off into danger and starvation.

We need him to bring us back that we might see him face to face.

But as we follow Asaph in crying out for restoration, we start seeing more explicitly what's prompting this cry for salvation and for God to act.

Again, it's not explicitly clear what events are taking place, but we're starting to see why Asaph asks God to listen.

In verses four to seven, we see that we need to cry out for restoration with our questions in our pain and shame.

Verse 4 brings up more of God's anger, which we saw last week in Psalms 79.

And again, it's a question of how long will you be angry, but this time it's with your people's prayers.

It is such an honest question.

And in order for us to be restored to the right relationship with God, we we must come with our honest questions.

The people have seen God's anger and they're experiencing it in a pretty acute way, as we'll see in the following verses five and six.

And they're bringing it to God.

They're asking them, how long?

It seems like they're somewhat taking responsibility for what they've done.

Whatever it is, again, we're not told explicitly here.

It seems like they're taking responsibility for it because they acknowledge their need for God to restore them.

They can't do it themselves, to turn them back.

And though sin isn't mentioned here in the same way as last week, it does seem like they're taking responsibility because they're not claiming that they don't deserve it.

Later in verse 12, they ask another question, which is important for that section, but for now, in verse 4, they ask, how long?

As much as it seems like they're willing to take that responsibility, they don't feel like the judgment for their sin and the consequences of what they've done should go on this long.

They feel as though God isn't listening to them.

He's angry with their prayers, and hence the beginning of this psalm.

Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel.

But can you see how gracious God is here?

Even in his anger, he teaches us to pray like this.

To bring our honest questions to him.

When we know we're wrong.

Instead of hiding away.

We ask him to listen.

Even when we fear he's too angry to listen.

This is how we're being taught to come before our Lord and ask for restoration.

That's what it means to have a restored relationship with him.

It's to bring our honest questions to him.

No relationship can deepen without this level of honesty.

So God invites us to be honest with him.

And he also invites us to bring our pain to him.

Verse 5 starts to open up again the context for this cry for restoration a bit more.

The people are in utter pain and distress.

They're crying so much that it's basically their food and drink, it's their entire diet.

And it's interesting to hear how Asaph describes what's going on and what's behind it.

In addressing God, he says, in verse 5, You have fed them, that's the people.

You have fed them with the bread of tears.

God is the one Asaf sees as being the orchestrator of their pain and turmoil.

It's come from his hand.

That's hard to contend with, but Asaf teaches us two really important things here.

He teaches us that God is sovereign over all, including our pain, and he teaches us what to do with our pain.

Because with God being sovereign, that means that even in our pain we can take comfort that He is over it, He's in control.

He's the one who can do something about it.

And that's good because the things back in verses 1 to 3 are still true.

But how could a good God feed his people with the bread of tears and give them tears to drink in full measure?

Well, a huge part of it is in what ASAF teaches us to do with our pain.

He teaches us by example in writing this psalm, and he leads us as we sing this song that he wrote for God's people to sing together.

We bring our pain to God.

Our pain, whether it comes from someone else or whether it's self-inflicted, it needs to drive us to God.

We need to bring our pain to him.

There's clearly something up with the people and the relationship with God.

And they needed to come back to him.

And through their pain, God was restoring them to himself, just as they're now asking.

In a way, God is already answering their prayer to restore us, oh God.

And what ASAF is teaching us to do here, as you bring your pain to God, what you're doing is you're lamenting.

Lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust.

That's what we're learning to do here.

And some of you may be walking through this with pain like this in your life right now.

Even not, we all need to learn to lament to give us the vocabulary for when we will fain in our lives, whether that's now or in the future.

And not only do we bring our pain to him, we also bring our shame.

That's verse 6.

Where the psalmist complains that the circumstances of the people's existence, he directs that at directs that at God.

He says that God, because of what he's done, that there's shame being brought on them.

They're ashamed, having been ridiculed by their neighbors.

Like last week, those around them, their neighbors and enemies, mock them.

But Asaph is continuing to encourage us, God's people, to come to him in honesty, bringing even our shame to him.

And as with our pain, he's the one who can do something about it.

So place it before him.

And so we have the second refrain in verse 7.

But notice that it's been added to.

It's restore us, O God of hosts.

And this is fitting with what's gone before, with God's sovereignty over all things, including those difficult circumstances, including the pain in our lives, which we saw just in those previous verses in verses five and six.

God commands hosts of armies.

He's in authority over all and has power to bring change.

It's this God that we come before to ask for salvation, that we ask for blessing, and we ask to turn us again to Him.

We'll spend a little more time here thinking about what it means to be restored to turn back to God.

This image of turning back to God is what repentance is.

That's what we're asking God to do in this repeated refrain.

We as his people are asking God to help us to repent.

We're asking him to turn us away from the sin in our lives and back to him instead.

Because this is where we find blessing and salvation, in turning to the God who blesses and makes his face to shine upon us.

And it's not just a once-off or an infrequent thing.

ASAP is showing us by putting it in again and again that the life of God's people as a whole, we as a congregation and we as individuals, it should be marked by this crying out to God for restoration, for him to turn us back to himself, that we might behold his face.

And that's very close to what Martin Luther, the reformer, wrote as the first of his 95 Theses.

The entire life of believers is to be one of repentance.

And praise the Lord that as his people heard that over 500 years ago in the Reformation, he did indeed restore them.

And that has had a massive impact for the glory of God and the building of his church on down the centuries to today, to here and on into the future, until Christ returns.

Consistent asking God to turn you back to Himself, that you would see His face and know His blessing.

This is the joy of repentance.

The reason for repentance, it's painful, it's dirty, it's shameful because of what we turn away from.

We're turning away from sin.

But what we're turning to is so beautiful.

It's so good, it's so pure and kind because we turn to God.

So be captured by the beauty of God and let that motivate your repentance.

You get to see his face, you get to know him, you get a restored relationship with him.

So cry out to God for restoration, even with your questions, in your pain and shame.

As we move through our third point in verses 8 to 13, we'll move a bit quicker.

The third point is in your questioning, we're still thinking about those questions, and we bring in honesty, but in your questioning, appeal to God's work in the past.

As I said, we're going to see more honesty in these verses, but first Asaph reminds us of God's sovereignty in establishing his people.

Such a great image in verse 8.

God plucked the vine out of the ground in Egypt, roots and all, and planted it in a new land where it took deep root and filled the land.

If there was any any doubt ever in who brought the people out of Egypt and brought them to the Promised Land, it's clear here.

Was it Moses who brought them out?

Was it the will of the people?

Was it the fact that Pharaoh chased them out and then God was like, okay, I better uh split the Red Sea for them and do something miraculous?

Not a chance.

Can I can a plant jump out of the ground and walk?

Can a vine plant itself somewhere else?

No, what the psalmist is describing here was that it was God's sovereign hand all along.

He makes that so clear.

Did the vine make the land, could it even make the land that it was planted in good for itself?

No.

God did.

So Aesaph looks back to the past, remembering that God established his people and caused them to flourish.

You see that the kingdom extended over the mountains and the forests, to the sea and the river, as it's so elegantly described in verses 10 and 11 there.

In the midst of our hardship, in our trouble, our pain, it's important to remember how God worked in the past to establish you as his.

But ASAF doesn't just do this to help us have hope for the future.

Though it is important to remember God's faithfulness in the past to help us trust him in the present and the future, that's an important and a good thing to do.

But for ASAF here, the reason he brings it up is because he can't make sense of how the present circumstances of the people, how those present circumstances line up with the past reality of God's work in them.

So what ASAF is teaching us to do is that when we come to God for restoration, we can bring our confusion and our complaint.

But now they're open to attack, and everyone uses them for what they want.

How can this be?

We see that down in verses 12 and 13.

Asaf asks, Why then have you broken down its walls?

Asaf can't understand why God would let the vine that he had planted, why would he let that be ransacked?

We've looked at the reasons before in verse 4 with Asaph's previous question.

The people have sinned.

They turned away from God.

And God is letting them face the consequences.

But even if that doesn't make sense, and it doesn't make sense necessarily for ASAP in the moment, and even if it doesn't make sense in your life, ASAF teaches us to bring that confusion to him, to bring your complaint.

And as we do that, we continue to cry out for restoration.

God can handle our complaints and our questions and our confusion as we pray to him in pain, which is a crucial part of what it is to lament.

But lament never stays there.

Lament is a prayer in pain.

It leads to something.

It leads to trust.

And that's our final main point.

Cry out for restoration.

In trust that God is the one you need.

As Asaf prays in pain, bringing his confusion and his questions, that leads him to trust.

So he asks God to turn again.

As you look at the structure of this psalm, you might have expected the refrain again after the section from verses 8 to 13, if you look at it.

It feels like we should get another restore us, O God of hosts.

Let your faith shine that we might be saved.

But what we actually find in verse 14 and 15 somewhat is an alteration of that repeated verse.

This is a variation on the theme.

The motif is changed, if you will.

Instead of us being turned, it's God who turns.

As I mentioned earlier, turn again in verse 14 is that same root word as restore that comes up in our refrain over and over.

As Asaf sees the need to be restored to God, for God to turn him and the people back to himself, he sees the parallel need for God to turn again towards them.

Remember back to the first question in verse 4.

The people are feeling God's anger.

And so they're asking him to turn again to them.

And this request in verses 14 to 15 is for God to see and know, for God to look down on his people and to have regard for them, for the people that he made his own, the people that he made to flourish.

To pray that God would see you and know you, even in the pain described in verses 4 to 6 and 12 to 13.

And as you pray for God to turn towards you, to shine his face on you and bless you, know that you're actually praying for justice too.

You see, the Lord's face is not kind to all.

So when he turns towards them, instead they will perish.

They'll perish more than how they bring destruction, like is described in verse 16.

They'll know perishing more than how they burn the vine with fire and cut it down.

As God restores his people, his enemies will know his rebuke.

And as we come to God for restoration, pray for blessing.

Pray that God's hand would be upon you and upon his people.

In verse 17, there, both the man of your right hand and the son of man whom you've made strong for yourself, they're still referring to Israel as in verse 15.

So we pray for God to strengthen us and to bless us because we're his people and he loves to bless.

But as you hear those words in verse 17, maybe you're seeing Christ come through lots.

And in the rest of the section, because he is indeed the Son of Man.

He indeed sits at the right hand of the throne of God, he's the one with all authority.

Maybe you've noticed before that he's the one, uh, sorry, he's the true vine, which Israel, the vine in Psalm 80, pointed forward to.

He's the one who uh earlier up in the Psalm, in verse 6, he's the one who was mocked by his enemies at the cross.

And even back to the start to verse 1, he's the good shepherd who leads his people like a flock.

We see Christ all through this Psalm.

And as the Good Shepherd, he gives life abundantly.

He's the answer to verse 18.

He's the answer to the psalmist crying out and the people crying out, give us life.

Jesus is the answer.

For all who are dead, come to Jesus for life.

For all who've been made alive in Him already, resolve to live for Him, as Asaph encourages us to do here, not turning back.

Call upon His name in prayer and praise.

And our final verse teaches us to come again and again to our Lord who saves.

Cry out for restoration in trust that God is the one you need.

He's the only one you need.

He's the only one who saves.

And Asaph adds, as he's done in the other refrain, he adds God's personal name here, Lord.

How is it that we see God's face?

How is it that we know his blessing?

Again, it's in Christ.

Jesus says, Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

As we cry out to be restored, it's Him that we turn to, it's Him that we're turned to.

As we look for God's face, we behold His glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

As we seek to be saved, we find salvation in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So come again and again to our Lord who saves.

And in your pain, bring your questions and your confusion to him.

And come honestly.

Know his sovereignty and care in all things, and seek his face again and again in joyful repentance.

Restore us, O Lord God of hosts, let your face shine that we may be saved.

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